Welcome to the blog of Assassin Soldier Recordings. What can you expect? We will talk about music in general, the artists of the label,
artists and their music we like and support. We will focus on electronic music and will give you our personal thoughts on it.

I am really happy that – after a while – I got the chance to do an interview again. This time with a very interesting DJane who plays amazing sets. A big welcome to Sionni!

English

Sionni, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Hi. I was born in a small city (ZVOLEN) in the middle of Slovakia surrounded with beautiful nature. Since I have been a small girl I have always been connected with music and dance. I used to
dance 15 years in local folk group. My love was dancing on the stage till my health problems stopped it. At the moment I am studying at university, working, traveling and nature is my second
home.

When did you start Djing and why?

My father is a passionate music collector so I had music education since I have been a little girl. My brother is playing the guitar in his metal band. My cousin plays in jazz band so we are all
influenced by music. My first touch with turntables was in 2007 when I was 14. I started playing on private events in the best club in that area. I am lucky that I lived in an era when a DJ had
to bring his vinyls and there was not such a rivalry between DJs and it was more about respect and support.

Why is music so important to you?

Every artist is putting his thoughts and feelings to his masterpiece. Someone is writer, someone a painter, someone needs music to set his body and thoughts free and focus on something more
spiritual. I always say: “Every track has its story.” While listening to it you can get into artist thoughts and feelings what he/she felt while producing it. I just need to listen.

Which are your 5 favorite artists and why?

I focus on other genres not techno. My biggest favorite artists are Ludovico Einaudi and Paul Kalkbrenner. Artists, whose tracks got story and soul. Then some DNB artists like Lenzman and Hybrid
Minds or more dark ambient styles like Sorrow, Phaeleh or more optimistic like Jan Blomqvist or The XX. Those artists always rise my current mood :). In the techno genre I have no favorite
artists and i always looking for new names.

What has been your most touching moment you have experienced as a DJ?

When I was younger I went to a party where Robin Jaydee performed. I used to play a lot of house music those days, when EDM was starting to get big. On that party I was the only one who really
enjoyed his set and after he finished he came down to shake my hand and to thank me. Then he added me on FB. He is always posting my videos and pictures from big events with words: One day we met
on one stage on same event.

A few years later we played together on big event Apokalypsa in Czech Republic where I played warm up set before artists like Ben Sims, James Ruskin, Derrick May, Shifted, Toky and many more.
Robin played on the house stage that night but of course we had been in touch before the party. We both enjoyed the party and he did not forget to say: “You see, I told you!”

Tell me something about the electronic music scene in the Czech Republic.

I will try to divide it briefly. In the Czech Republic I play mostly techno, as I belong to the Czech booking,”Maximal.cz“. The Czech scene is bigger, as there are more tourists in the capital or
other smaller towns; clubs with different styles – usually DNB, house, techno and commercial EDM.

Compared to Slovakia, there are only a few clubs in the capital for the underground scene; the rest of Slovakia prevails in the style of EDM. In Slovakia, especially during the summer, I can play
at nice, small events with family atmosphere, sunset and deep music.

I really love it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of DJs and saturation in the market; that’s why the people are not able to recognize styles, which is a problem for the DJ himself or is a problem
of commercial radios. But for the defense of both sides, there are many great artists, the people in our country do not know but they are very successful abroad.

What is your perfect idea of happiness?

I have been thinking a lot about this one. At the moment I am preparing myself for final exams so I hope to finish the university soon haha :). I am 24 so it’s time to move on and be healthy and
happy.

What do you most value in your friends?

Everyone got plenty of friends but only a few are the real ones. Those I value most always stay by my side. They are happy and extrovert people who always make me smile even in hard times.

Is there anything else you want to say at the end?

Thanks for your invitation and interview and I hope to see you soon again.☺

Luckily, I understand where Bandcamp is coming from. The
idea is that their relationships with Beatport, iTunes, Amazon and other platforms are SOOOOO key - trendy shit, that
they cannot rock the boat with any of those outlets. And I get that from a big picture perspective. But from the individual artists’ point of view, does it really help them all that much to have a featured placement on iTunes?

It’s cool and fun for a week or a day, but this goes away
and doesn’t really “move the needle” all that much. And ultimately Apple keeps the data, takes 30% and knows exactly who
the user/fan is while the label and artist are kept in the dark regarding this info.

Ok, so most of the people don’t know what Bandcamp is.
It’s not a social networking profile or website; it’s a digital sales platform. No problem, we’re all here to educate and help each other out for the greater good of the artist. My
response? “I don’t know if it makes sense to post an iTunes link to Bandcamp.”

Bandcamp is a place to sell digital music and many of the
fans are there because they aren’t fans of the iTunes experience or model. I’m happy to share the info with you all as well as corresponding statements if that works for you.

Therefore why aren’t we all leading with Bandcamp for
content releases? They of course do promotions as well. It’s a question I wanted to pose and will continue to try as right now, what Bandcamp is doing makes the most sense for
fans, artists and the industry at large with regard to modern music releases.

Bandcamp makes it easy for fans to directly connect with and support the artists they love. Their global music community enables fans to discover and connect with artists and
record labels, and directly compensates them for their work.

Bandcamp believes that music is art, and for music to
thrive, artists must be compensated fairly and transparently for their work. Their fair trade music policy means when you choose to pay an artist on Bandcamp, your money reaches them quickly,
and in a way that is simple to explain and understand. Here are some of the ways Bandcamp benefits fans, artists & labels:

·Artists: Sell music and merchandise
directly to your fans with total control over pricing and timing. Easy access to your customers’ data (including email and location), real-time stats, connect to labels, fully
customizable template pages, music chart reporting and more.

·Labels: Easy to customize label and artist template pages, unified accounting and stats across all
your artists, a single editing interface for your entire catalog, support for merch fulfillment, direct payments, connect to existing artist accounts, tap into a giant thriving music
community and a whole lot more.

We believe that music should be available in all possible
formats and not be limited to a selected few people. I took this idea to what I consider to be a very forward thinking indie label. A label with a great roster of like-minded
artists and styles.

It made me realize, why aren’t labels like the one above
LEADING with Bandcamp on their content rollouts? They take a smaller margin (15% going down to 10% over 5k USD in sales) and you
collect data including contact info from your fans. Artist aside for a moment, what a no brainer for a label that has a particular brand and vibe of like-minded fans to build their business
with this key contact information from each purchase.

Almost every day you can hear or read about tracks stolen from artists, stolen samples and…..nothing. It seems people nowadays don’t care anymore if someone stole a
track from another artist and makes a “big hit” out of it.

Can this be true? How can it be that people steal music, change their names, use a silly mask or dress colorful and say that they are professional DJs and
producers? And even worse: Some of them have the support of well-known booking agencies.

In recent years I have seen a bunch of pseudo producers who are calling themselves “great producers” producing “bombs”. And when you finally listen to the release
you find out that they only use samples they bought or downloaded for free.

I am sure that you have some names in your mind and I am sure some of you already released stuff like this. These puppets do their shows with their live acts or
their – trendy and stupid name nowadays – hybrid sets.

It’s a SHAME to see these people doing a complete FAKE SHOW at the stage, getting a lot of money, cheating the promoters, the labels and most important, the people
who believe in them.

What happened to these days when a truly LIVE ACT was really amazing (it doesn’t matter the music style) because all the machines and sequencers and all the gear
they had on stage? What happened to these days when real DJs spent a lot of time training their skills and spent tons of hours digging for great tracks? What happened to these days when REAL
PRODUCERS spent several hours, days and sometimes weeks in the studio just to get the perfect sound for their own tracks?

It seems that everything changed in the music business. It seems that the music is not important anymore. It seems that the most important thing is how good,
trendy, funny, dark or stupid artists look on stage. It seems that it doesn’t really matter if the artist is only playing a mix CD or a DJ set from someone else. Or if this “amazing live act” was
previously recorded. It doesn’t matter if this pseudo artist has five machines on stage but only uses the “play” button on the laptop. The thing that matters is to have the DJ booth filled with
colored lights in the machines, right? So people could say: “Hey this guy has a lot of gear, so he/she is cool…bro!”

It looks that everything is damn apparel on the stage, a lot people don´t care or they have no memory at all about ALL THESE FAKES!

As I said:

"As an artist, you have to work respectful with the labels who trust in your music, with the promoters who trust in your work, but most important...with the people
and fans outside who believe in all your work and who believe totally in you!"

Real producers who creates their own music and productions with their own knowledgement without sample libraries and tricky dumb things...they have my entire
respect and support.

Our next artist lives on the other
side of the planet, so, let’s go and visit him in Waterford, MI.

DJ and producer Annix
TM has been honing his own sound of
Techno music since the 1990s. His production work ranges from funky to dark to mechanical but always nodding to the sound and
spirit of his birthplace and lifelong home of Detroit. You can expect his DJ sets to explore all eras and flavors of techno while being mixed with precision, speed, and force for maximum
impact.

His first collaboration with the
label is the track called Durga Mata on the ASR Compilation 2017.

We are very happy
to present you several new artists on our label as well as old acquaintances. In the past weeks we already started to introduce to you all the compilation artists and
will of course go on with it in the next weeks.

So join us in the
travelling through space and music genres and enjoy the definition of unique music of each artist on the compilation.

In our travel
around the world we are stopping today in Middelburg, Netherlands.

We are very happy
to present you the next artist of the compilation: Monoteck (Mario van Acker), a 29-year old Techno DJ and producer.

His sound can be
described as pounding, deep rhythmic techno, sometimes melodic, sometimes dark. Monoteck is currently working really hard in developing his style of techno music and creating his own career
within the dance scene.

The track “Tonight” will be his first release on AS
Recordings. Welcome in the ASR family!

We are happy to
inform you that on September 20th 2017, the third Assassin Soldier Recordings (ASR) V/A Compilation will be released.

With our
compilation we present you music around the world. 13 artists from Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, USA, Belgium and Norway will present their definition of fine Techno music.

You can find numerous Techno music sub-genres, perfect to play in a club or festival, from really deep techno to pounding & rougher techno for peak hours!

Enjoy the music and
come with us to get to know the artists a little bit more. In the next weeks we are presenting you each artist from the compilation.

Our first artist
today is Jaimy Smink from Belgium. Loyal fans of the label already know him, as he released his first EP – Midgar EP – on ASR last year.

This charismatic
producer and DJ has had a long lasting relationship with electronic music and is a name to look out for. He was born in Arnhem, Netherlands, but grew up in Antwerp, Belgium. He draws inspiration
from these different cultures. This diversity led up to his driven and deep sounding productions.

Jaimy Smink’s style
can be described as a combination of rough, deep and rhythmic thrills. The name of the track for this compilation is Phosphorus.

At International Women’s Day I realized that suddenly a greater interest for women in electronic music could be seen in social media. I ask myself why it needs a
certain day to find out that there is more in electronic music.

We all know that women in music are often underestimated. That’s a pity. In the past decades until today there are very talented girls or women who contributed a lot
in the electronic music.

Suzanne Ciani is a great example. She is known for her compositions on the Buchla Analog Modular Synthesizer:

Several scores for television commercials and as well film scores were composed by her. And even with 70 years she is still performing live:

Exclusion. Everyone knows this word and - in the worst case - has experienced it. It was new for me that nowadays music is excluded from the culture of a city.

What? Yes, I actually I received this statement. Not from a city’s employee. From a self-called “member” of the cultural scene. And the reason for excluding electronic music from the city culture
made me realize that something is not good anymore in Germany.

I was told that certain clubs, because of the alleged bad reputation, do not belong to the city culture. But the best was: All the DJs who played there – no matter if they are international
artists or national artists – are just bad.

.

I don’t get this. What does a DJ have to do with the club who books him? Not that much, or? The DJ has to ensure that the audience spends a great night with good music. And for this he is paid. I
am afraid I am completely wrong with this.

And another disturbing statement was: "These clubs and the music are not part of the culture of our city." So, you exclude already music in a certain music style. Which person decides who and
what belongs to a culture of a city and what not?

I wonder in which society we are living in. There are people who do not only exclude other people, because they don’t fit in their world picture, but also music styles.

Our scene has always been defined by music, tolerance, party and cooperation. Nowadays, we define ourselves apparently by something else.

This is an interesting question which cannot be answered with a proper “yes” or “no”. Oh, there is music which

There is music in our world which is unique and emotional, music which brings goose bumps on your skin or music which starts your fantasies. Oh what a gift for your soul. It does not matter if
the music makes you feel like dancing or relaxing or even dreaming.

I often find new music which exactly makes me feel like I said before. And then, when I search for it either on Facebook, YouTube, Soundcloud, whatever, I can see: 4 likes…. 16 plays….no
likes….46 plays… And in our world today the most important thing for people and companies are the likes on the pages of an artist or the number of the plays of their videos or podcasts.

This is a shame sometimes. Actually I have to admit that I had reacted in the same when I started using social media. Uh, this artist has not so much likes so
this means the music is shit.

Mea culpa! I was often wrong, wrong and wrong. A very good friend of mine once told me: “Give the artist a chance.”

Yes, I will.

We should not judge anything including music only by the number of likes or views. There is so fantastic music out there which you will never find because you don’t try it at least once in your
life. So, next time you look for a new inspiration in music, give an artist a chance and hopefully you will find music which simply makes you happy. Correct?

Last weekend I finally had the chance to visit a record store for electronic music again. After years of closing of record stores, big and small ones, this was a quite
overwhelming experience. As most of you know, visiting a record store for a music lover was for all of us a special moment.

Can you remember how you felt when you entered a record store?

You opened the door and suddenly this very special feeling flew through your body. Sounds of electronic music welcomed you, and it didn’t matter if techno music, house music or drum and bass was
played. It suddenly felt like coming home..

You saw in front of you hundreds of records and the only thing you really wanted was digging deep through everything to find a special gift for yourself. You spent hours in this record shop.

And then, after flipping through records and deciding for several records you went straight to the turntables. Can you remember the feeling putting the first record and push the start button?

Suddenly you hear in your headphones the typical sounds of a record. This unmistakable crackling sound when you put the tone arm on the record. And when the first track started you were diving
into another world. A world full of emotions rushing through your veins and it was impossible to resist.

Oh, I love this picture and often I miss these special moments. Yes, nowadays you can sit at home; search the internet for new and good music, but it isn’t the
same, right?

So, if you ever have the chance to go to a record store around the corner, just do it. You will not only find music but also like-minded people, interesting conversations and a unique culture.
And you will leave with a good feeling and a bunch of new records and fantastic music.

I did some research on new topics for the blog and I saw again that the web was flooded by pictures and videos of half-naked women behind a DJ booth, pressing the start button of
the laptop and trying to put more attention to their boobs and asses instead on the music.

I started asking myself: Is this the new definition of a DJ? Does a DJ nowadays needs to have good looking instead of having a good music taste and the ability of communicating with the crowd
through the music?

Can it be that the music is not so important anymore? Just to be clear, there are lots of good looking DJs – female or male – which have awesome skills in DJing. For me, a DJ needs to have the
following skills: a unique music taste, fantastic mixing skills and of course the connection to his/her crowd. If he/she is good looking is really unimportant.

A DJ needs to get the connection to the crowd, this is essential. Sometimes this can work immediately after starting with the first track, sometimes this can take longer. A DJ has to know its
crowd to make them a perfect evening.

So what about the mixing skills? In my opinion you need to have it, to call yourself a DJ. Can you remember all nights you spend on the dancefloor because the DJ put some fantastic music on and
it felt like the track last the whole night? What an amazing skill to mix together different tracks and different music styles and it still feels like one track. I know, nowadays the mixing
skills of a DJ are not that important anymore. Many thanks to the BPM counter.

And music taste? I think a good music taste means putting together new and old school music, show the crowd new tracks but still take care of their taste and what they like. A perfect
mixture of music makes a night at the club more interesting. Who in the hell wants to go out and listen the same music every weekend? Isn’t this getting boring at some point?

What is your opinion on this? Is the job of a DJ to give a crowd an incredible and unforgettable evening on the dancefloor? In my opinion, yes. Do you agree?

Share this post with your friends and let´s talk everyone about this ok?

Damn....some answers here..

I know, I know….This sentence has been answered and the question been asked a million times. But damn, the
answers why we love music can be so different and personally that you could write a book about it.

So why we love music? Yeeees, scientists would talk now about the human brain and dopamine. Which is of course fair to answer? But what about that special feeling every human being has (which I
hope) when listening to music. Remember when you listened the first time to your favorite song.

You feel surprised and suddenly this warm and comfortable feeling starts to fill your body. And goose bumps start to appear all over your body. And you start smiling.

Or when you go to a concert of your favorite band and you experience one and a half hour full of emotion and happiness in which you are connected to thousands of people through the music…amazing.

Or imagine, you are in a club listening to the music of your favorite DJ and the only thing you can think of is closing your eyes and just feel the music with every part of your body…outstanding.

Or maybe you are at your darkest and saddest part in your life, where nothing seems to make sense anymore. And then you listened by accident this one track and you are thinking: “Damn, there is
someone out in this world who perfectly understands what I am going through.” And all these emotions you suddenly feel in your body give you the strength to go on…you will be thankful forever.

And now after all this text I ask you: Why do you love music? Leave your comments here and let me know.

Share this post with your friends and let´s talk everyone about this ok?

ASSASSIN SOLDIER RECORDINGS

SOCIAL MEDIA

ASR Headquarters, Mexico City, Mexico.

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